


Dust in the Wind

by miraielle



Category: Austin & Murry-O'Keefe Families - Madeleine L'Engle, His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Kairos (O'Keefe) Series - Madeleine L'Engle
Genre: Asexual Character, Crossover, Daemons, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 06:27:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13898229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miraielle/pseuds/miraielle
Summary: Charles Wallace stands up, and while he doesn’t appear any larger, he does all but glow with certainty. “I’ve stood on other worlds, and I’ve fought darkness that most people can’t even imagine, and I’ve loved people I’ll never be able to see again. The most important things that have ever happened to me are things I can only talk to a handful of people about.”Will raises a shaking hand to grip Kirjava’s fur, hardly caring that Charles Wallace will only see him holding a fist inches from his ear. “What does you being crazy have to do with me?”Charles Wallace smiles his joyful smile again. “One learns to recognize it in others.”





	Dust in the Wind

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fic I wrote on Tumblr way back in 2013-2014 and am finally putting on AO3 for ease of reading. The place where it leaves off isn't particularly well wrapped up, but I can't promise I'll ever add any more (though I also can't promise that I won't). I hope you're able to enjoy it for what it is.

i.

There are closer places to sit than the Botanic Garden, but that is where Charles Wallace’s feet take him whenever he needs a break from his little stone-walled office. _I’ll go get coffee_ , he tells himself, and turns toward the cafe, his mind turning back to a particularly troubling paragraph of his thesis, but when he sorts out the sentences and knows his surroundings again, he is always empty-handed and standing before the bench.

The garden feels like the stargazing rock at home, a numinous, inbetween place. It is loved fiercely, he can feel it in his bones, and he finds that he wants to know why, wants to know the person who has infused this place with such longing. If a place can be Named, can fight the darkness just by the force of its existence, it is this bench in this garden.

Eventually, even as the days get hotter with the approach of midsummer, he stops trying to stay away. The grass around the bench is greener than that elsewhere, the flowers brighter, the wood somehow more solid, as if they are all preparing themselves for something important. Charles Wallace’s palms itch with anticipation for an event he cannot even predict.

But he has learned patience. If the bench can hold its breath and wait, so can he.

ii.

There is a boy sitting in Lyra’s spot.

Will approaches the bench warily, Kirjava twisting around his ankles, and the boy watches him come, his gaze steady and unreadable. He’s slight and pale, can’t be older than eighteen, and far stronger men have quailed under Will’s gaze, but the boy merely tilts his head to the side as if he is listening as Will comes to a stop in front of him.

“I’m sorry,” the boy says after a moment. He’s American, and his voice is solemn and sad. “I’m intruding. I didn’t know.”

He stands up, nods to Will, and his eyes flicker over but do not quite land on Kirjava before he walks away down the path.

Will puts it out of his mind - compartmentalization is a skill he has learned well - but the boy is still waiting by the gate when he finally leaves.

“You were kything,” he says, and Will keeps his expression carefully calm. He doesn’t know what that word means, but somehow he knows that, yes, that is exactly what he’d been doing. The damp chill of Lyra’s Oxford is still prickling under his skin.

“I’m Charles Wallace. I’ve been waiting to meet you.”

“Why?” Will asks, and Charles Wallace shrugs.

“You’re a sport,” he says.

Will fights the urge to look away, the sense that the boy’s calm blue eyes are seeing far more of him than they should, and says, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Maybe I’m mistaken,” Charles Wallace says, though Will doesn’t think he means it. “I’m here every day.”

He turns and walks away, and after a second, Will calls after him. “Not here.”

Charles Wallace stops and looks back, waits.

“I chauffeur a punt,” Will says. Charles Wallace smiles, a sudden burst of joy that leaves Will aching, nods, and goes on his way.

Kirjava leans against Will’s shin with a fretful miaou.

“I know,” Will tells her. “Me, too.”

iii.

Charles Wallace doesn’t go back to the Botanic Gardens. _Not here_ hadn’t meant _don’t meet me here_ , he doesn’t think. It meant _this is not your place_ , and while he cannot bring himself to regret having gone in the first place, he also won’t intrude again.

He waits three days before he goes to the Magdalen Bridge Boathouse.

“I’m looking for a punter,” he tells the man behind the counter.

“Twenty-five pounds,” the man says with a slight sigh, like Charles Wallace is the hundredth tourist today who hasn’t bothered to read the signs.

“No, I mean a particular punter,” Charles Wallace explains. “I’m sorry, I don’t know his name, but he has black hair and a - a chin.” He gestures around his face to indicate a square jaw. “Tall. Quiet?”

The man is nodding. “You mean Will.”

Charles Wallace smiles encouragingly. “Will. Yes, that’s him. Is he here?”

“He’s out with a party for the whole day, I’m afraid. He should be back about five.”

“Thank you very much,” Charles Wallace says. “I appreciate your help. I’ll come back.”

That afternoon, questions of dark matter are elusive.

iv.

Kirjava usually finds a patch of sun to curl up in while Will is out on the river, but today Will can see her pacing the end of the dock as soon as it comes into sight. She leaps to his shoulder as soon as he steps off of the punt.

“Charles Wallace is here,” she whispers into his ear. “He came asking this morning, and he’s been waiting the last half hour.”

Will nods slightly and doesn’t look for him. “Thoughts?” he murmurs.

“I don’t know,” she says. “He’s different. Not bad, I don’t think, but he knows things he shouldn’t. You can kill him easily enough if it’s necessary, I suppose.”

Will hums in agreement. 

After tying his punt up and fetching his bag from staff storage, Will finally spots Charles Wallace sitting on a bench along the shore. He’s watching Will, and his daemon, a black and green snake with red spots running down its back, is coiled around his shoulders.

“Hello again,” Charles Wallace says once Will reaches him. His snake’s tongue flickers out, tasting the air. “It’s Will, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Will says. “Why are you here?”

“Why did you tell me where to find you?” Charles Wallace counters, and Kirjava presses in against Will’s cheek. It’s a question she’s asked him repeatedly in the last three days.

“I don’t know,” Will says.

“Yes, you do.”

Will steps back, Kirjava hissing softly. “You don’t know anything about me.”

Charles Wallace stands up, and while he doesn’t appear any larger, he does all but glow with certainty. “I’ve stood on other worlds, and I’ve fought darkness that most people can’t even imagine, and I’ve loved people I’ll never be able to see again. The most important things that have ever happened to me are things I can only talk to a handful of people about.”

Will raises a shaking hand to grip Kirjava’s fur, hardly caring that Charles Wallace will only see him holding a fist inches from his ear. “What does you being crazy have to do with me?”

Charles Wallace smiles his joyful smile again. “One learns to recognize it in others.”

v.

Charles Wallace can’t stop thinking about the way Will’s hand settled in the air by his ear.

It comes to him like a whisper in his ear, a thing that he can’t puzzle out no matter how long he tries. He doesn’t know what it means, and he doesn’t know why he cares.

He knows why he cares. He cares, deeply and expansively and suddenly, about everything he knows about Will, and about all of the things he doesn’t. But he doesn’t know why, of what he knows and what he wants to know, that one meaningless detail is what keeps coming to his mind.

Try harder, he thinks. Try harder, try harder, try harder. It comes to him while he writes, while he cooks, while he falls asleep. 

But trying harder isn’t the answer; Will had all but fled from the boathouse, and while Charles Wallace hasn’t yet managed to master the social skills that would put most people at ease in his presence, he does know that continuing to look for Will would be unlikely to lead to friendship. He believes that they will be friends someday, knows that the universe wouldn’t have led him to that garden if Will weren’t intimately tied to his future, and that is enough to give him patience.

And yet the thoughts come to him: Will’s hand in the air. Try harder.

vi.

Will’s tiny flat is on the second floor of a crumbling building; the best thing about it is the window seat from which Kirjava can watch the street while she waits for Will to come home on particularly rainy days. She doesn’t much mind getting wet, but she considers the ability to choose to stay home when she doesn’t feel like bothering with damp fur to be one of the benefits of settling as a cat.

She’s half-dozing, gazing out of the window, when something twists and flutters through the air. A ribbon, maybe, she thinks, but then it turns against the wind, undulating as it moves toward her.

Kirjava realizes that it’s a snake just before it lands on the windowsill, its momentum carrying it through the crack Will leaves open so that Kirjava can leave if she chooses.

“He can see you,” the snake wails, its tail thrashing in agitation. “How do you do it?”

Kirjava hasn’t yet entirely decided whether Charles Wallace is dangerous, but she is reminded of her own desperate wish for Will to see her and she cannot turn his daemon away. This has never happened before; Will is so careful not to acknowledge her where anyone else can see, and so many daemons here are dead-eyed and docile from the loneliness of their unacknowledged existences. The snake’s determination and initiative suggest that Charles Wallace may very well be exactly what he claims to be.

“Where’s Charles Wallace?” she asks. He must be coming up the stairs, or on the pavement just below the window.

“At home,” the snake says. “Should he be here? He doesn’t want to frighten Will again, he won’t come.”

“Will isn’t frightened of anything,” she says, more out of loyalty than anything. “Where is home?”

Charles Wallace must live in this building, in the next flat over, or - but the snake names a street half a mile away, and Kirjava’s tail puffs in shock. "But how did you leave him?“

"He left me once,” the snake says, coiling up as small as it can. “On Camazotz, when he went with IT, I couldn’t go with him, and he didn’t even know. He was so frightened.”

“Will left me, too,” Kirjava says. “But when he found me again, he could see me.”

The snake wails again, a sound of utter despair.

“But Will may be able to help. And if he can’t, our friend Mary can.”

“Please,” the snake says. “Please, please, I’ll do anything.”

“Stay calm,” Kirjava says. “And go back to Charles Wallace. He’ll be missing you, even if he doesn’t know it. I’ll talk to Will. Where can we find you?”

It’s another quarter of an hour before Kirjava can convince the snake to leave; it lists every place Charles Wallace might possibly be in the next two weeks and needs Kirjava to reassure it over and over that she’ll do her best to help.

She’s exhausted by the time it finally leaves, curling off of the windowsill before flinging itself through the air to a nearby branch, but she knows that the difficult part is ahead of her.

She still has to convince Will.

vii.

Two weeks after Midsummer’s Day, Charles Wallace walks out of the Peierls Center to find Will waiting for him.

“So,” Will says, “physics?”

“Yes,” Charles Wallace says, trying not to smile too widely. “Particle theory, mostly.”

“Particle theory,” Will sighs, rubbing his forehead. “Of course.”

Charles Wallace blinks. “Excuse me?”

“Never mind,” Will says. “Enjoying your courses?”

“I’m postgraduate,” Charles Wallace tells him. “I don’t have any.”

“What, were you one of those child prodigies or something?”

“Yes,” Charles Wallace says, scrupulously honest. “But I’m twenty-two.”

“Sorry.” Will sounds surprised.

Charles Wallace shrugs. “Don’t be. I’m used to it.”

Will looks at Charles Wallace’s left shoulder. “Yes, sorry, I’m getting to you. I hear you have a bit of a problem.”

Charles Wallace frowns. “No, I don’t.”

“Not you,” Will says, and it’s so clear a dismissal that Charles Wallace stops talking and waits. “Sorry,” Will says to Charles Wallace’s shoulder, looking vaguely contrite, then meets his eyes again. “I’m sorry, Charles Wallace, that was rude.”

“That’s okay,” Charles Wallace says, though he’s more and more confused.

“I’ll do my best,” Will says, back to his shoulder, clearly holding up one end of a conversation. “Yes, of course you’re upset. Shh, it’s all right, let me talk to him, yeah?”

“And who have you been talking to?” Confused isn’t the same thing as frightened; Charles Wallace is no stranger to invisible beings.

“I’m going to try to show you,” Will says, and starts down the street. “Come on.”

He explains as they walk (“My demon?” “Your daemon.”), and Charles Wallace finds that he believes Will - or at least very much wants to believe him. He generally assumes that the universe is stranger than he’ll ever know, and, perhaps more importantly, he already trusts Will. It’s the sort of trust he had in Mrs. Whatsit, implicit and intuitive, and it’s a feeling that’s never steered him wrong.

But still, a part of the soul - or something like that, Will is vague on the details - that takes the form of an animal, but that none of the beings he’s met from any number of other worlds have seemed to be aware of? It’s a little hard to swallow.

Will has moved from explaining daemons to telling Charles Wallace how he might be able to see his - it seems to boil down to concentrate, only don’t - and finally turns them into a tiny park, gesturing to a bench.

“Well,” Will says, “go on, then.”

“Just like that?”

Will shrugs and shoves his hands into his pockets. “I don’t know what else to tell you. If you can’t do it, you can’t do it.”

Charles Wallace nods, takes a deep breath, and looks around. “Where-?”

“Why don’t you,” Will says to his shoulder, then nods. “There you are. Right in your lap, you can’t miss it.”

Charles Wallace tries to call forth the feeling of concentration he gets when he’s deep enough into a problem to lose all sense of time while keeping his mind off of any particular problem. It feels disconcertingly like tessering, the moment of disconnection before you reach a new place.

And then there is a weight in his lap, a snake, its head and a good foot of its body rising from the coils to hover inches from Charles Wallace’s face. It should be surprising, but he isn’t frightened in the least. He feels like he’s seeing his oldest and dearest friend.

“Hello,” Charles Wallace says, and the snake opens its mouth and disappears.

Charles Wallace looks around wildly, then up at Will. “Where’d it go?”

“I think you have to work at it,” Will says, his hand once again in the air by his ear - and Charles Wallace understands that now. “Keep the frame of mind or something. It was different for Kirjava and me.”

Charles Wallace tries again, and this time he finds it around his shoulders, whispering encouragement in his ear. “-knew you could do it,” it’s saying. “You’re so smart, Charles Wallace, I know you’ll do it again.”

“There you are,” Charles Wallace says, and then he and the snake are both laughing as Charles Wallace strokes his fingers down its cool skin.

He manages two minutes this time. When he looks up, Will is gone.

viii.

Will is reading when Charles Wallace knocks on his door.

“Lavardin told me where you live,” Charles Wallace says. “I wanted to say thank you.”

His daemon - Lavardin, apparently - is wrapped around his neck like a scarf, her head curving up to lie against the top of Charles Wallace’s ear.

“You’re a bit of a stalker, Lavardin,” Will says.

“They’re a paradise tree snake,” Charles Wallace says proudly, reaching up to scratch Lavardin’s chin. “ _Chrysopelea paradisi_. They can _fly_.”

“Kirjava told me,” Will says, stepping back from the door. “She scared her half to death. Come in, I suppose.”

“They,” Charles Wallace says. “Lavardin prefers gender neutral pronouns. Why would you assume she?”

“Sorry,” Will says. “Daemons are usually the opposite sex to their person. Have a seat. Tea?”

“Yes, thank you,” Charles Wallace says as he sits at the tiny kitchen table. “That’s rather binaristic, isn’t it? There aren’t only two sexes, in either humans or animals. Not to mention that gender and sex aren’t the same thing." 

Charles Wallace’s jaw is set, and Will knows somehow that it’s the face of a boy who expects to be mocked, if not worse, but who is going to tell the truth anyway. He is reminded very suddenly of Lyra, her fierce anger and fiercer love, and he turns quickly to fill the kettle before he can shout at this strange, persistent boy for daring to suggest that Lyra might have been wrong. Kirjava leaps onto the counter beside him and puts a delicate paw on his hand.

"I’ve upset you,” Charles Wallace says quietly after a moment. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” Will says, turning back around with a forced smile. “You’re right, of course. I’d never thought about it, but I should have.”

Charles Wallace relaxes, though he still looks concerned.

“So, why Lavardin?”

“For Hildebert of Lavardin,” Charles Wallace says, and Lavardin gives a full-body wriggle of joy even as Will thinks for a moment before shaking his head.

“Not familiar, sorry. Should I be?”

“God is over all things, under all things,” Charles Wallace recites, “outside all; within, but not enclosed; without, but not excluded; above, but not raised up; below, but not depressed; wholly above, presiding; wholly without, embracing; wholly within, filling.” He smiles at Will expectantly.

“Huh,” Will says.

Charles Wallace’s smile fades.

“I’m not very religious,” Will explains, after a moment too long in which he tries to decide whether to explain that, even were God not dead, he wouldn’t deserve anyone’s worship.

“I don’t think it’s about religion, really,” Charles Wallace starts, but Will cuts him off.

“Don’t.”

Charles Wallace is looking more and more concerned. “All right,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Will says, and finishes making the tea in silence. 

When he finally sits down across from Charles Wallace and slides a mug over to him, Charles Wallace is studying the tabletop while Lavardin whispers into his ear. “Why are you here?” Will finally asks, once he decides that Charles Wallace isn’t likely to say anything.

“I told you,” Charles Wallace says, looking up, “I wanted to say thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Will says. “Why are you here?”

Charles Wallace meets his eyes steadily. “And I’d like us to be friends.”

“Why?”

“I get a feeling sometimes,” Charles Wallace says. “Like I’m meant to know someone. Like I’ll be better - we’ll both be better - if we know each other. Like there’s an adventure waiting for me.”

“What if you’re wrong?”

“If I’m ever wrong, I guess I’ll find out.”

“Well, I’ve had quite enough adventure for one lifetime,” Will says, and spreads his left hand on the table.

Charles Wallace doesn’t look horrified or disgusted or frightened, any of the reactions Will has come to expect. He looks sorry, and a little intrigued, and his hand twitches as if he wants to touch.

Will pulls his hand away before he can find out whether that’s an impulse Charles Wallace would have followed through on. “Bit of an accident with a knife,” he says.

“It must have hurt,” Charles Wallace says, and Will thinks he means more than just losing his fingers. “Wouldn’t you like to have somebody you can talk to about it?”

“I did,” Will says. “But she’s gone. I don’t want anyone else.” He means both Lyra, who is gone from him forever, and Mary, who still comes up from London to take him to dinner once a month, but only to talk about school and work. After the first few months, talking about what had happened to them had only served to make Will miss Lyra more, and they’d slowly spent less and less time reminiscing. Now, Will loves Mary, but as he imagines one would love a much older sister, not entirely as a friend.

Lavardin is pressing against Charles Wallace’s cheek and staring at Kirjava with betrayal; how a snake emotes, Will will never know, but Lavardin is emoting like hell. Kirjava, for her part, is curled in Will’s lap, her eyes slitted, and purring a soft comforting rumble against Will’s thighs.

“Well,” Charles Wallace says, “I guess I’d better go, then.” He leaves his tea untouched and is up and to the door before Will can even think about whether he wants to stop him. “If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

Will and Kirjava sit there for several minutes, Will drinking his tea as Kirjava’s purring slowly peters out.

“You know,” she finally says, “Lyra doesn’t want us to be alone.”

“Shut up,” Will says, and dumps her unceremoniously to the ground.

ix.

Charles Wallace emails Meg.

– _Oh, Charles, he’s a moron if he doesn’t want to be friends with you,_ she writes back. _You’ll meet other people. Calvin says to remind you that you can come on a little strong. The kids want you to Skype sometime soon._

– _I’ll Skype anytime they like,_ he replies. _But it isn’t about making friends. That’s like telling me I would’ve met another Mrs. Whatsit, or that you would’ve found another Calvin. And I wasn’t coming on to him._

– _That was a turn of phrase and you know it,_ comes back far too quickly. _Coming on to him?? Another Calvin??? What aren’t you telling me? Is he cute????_

Charles Wallace doesn’t know what he isn’t telling her.

He goes back to the Botanic Garden. He feels guilty almost immediately, but he sits on Will’s bench and tries to think anyway.

“Was I wrong?” he asks Lavardin. “I don’t think I was wrong.”

“No,” they say. “I don’t think so, either. But you can’t love him into loving you.”

Charles Wallace smiles and strokes their head. “What did I ever do without you?”

“You always had me,” they say. “You just couldn’t hear me quite as clearly.”

The two of them sit there for a long time, Charles Wallace’s mind wandering aimlessly and Lavardin basking in the sun, before Lavardin finally rouses themself and slithers up close to Charles Wallace’s ear.

“Charles Wallace,” they whisper, “even if he never speaks to us again, it would still be worth it, wouldn’t it? To see me?”

“Always,” Charles Wallace says, and rests his cheek against their sleek scales. “Always.”

x.

Kirjava doesn’t say anything else about Charles Wallace. Summer wanes, and if, on days when Kirjava stays home, Will occasionally sees a flash of movement at the window when he opens the front door, neither of them mention it.

In early September, his classmates start returning to town from summers in Italy and France and Majorca; there are parties and pub nights and Will realizes that he doesn’t actually like any of them. Most of them are pleasant enough to have a pint or a study group with, and he isn’t actively dreading being in the clinical course with them, but he’s not interested in knowing any of them any better than he already does.

That’s not particularly odd, in and of itself. Will doesn’t make friends easily or, for that matter, at all. What’s odd is that he finds that he’s disappointed.

“I think it might be possible that I may be a bit lonely,” he finally tells Kirjava.

“I don’t think you gave that statement enough qualifiers,” she says. “Are you sure it isn’t indigestion?”

“Haha,” he says, deadpan.

A week later, Kirjava bats at his ear as they pass a wall covered in posters for various events. They’re ubiquitous enough that Will hardly notices them anymore, but Kirjava hisses, “ _Arcadia_!” in his ear and Will stops to check dates. Kirjava likes the theatre a good deal more than he does; she regularly sneaks in on her own, but he goes along when she insists, and actually tends to enjoy Stoppard and Frayn enough that it doesn’t take much prodding on her part to get him to buy a ticket.

The show is general admission, and Kirjava suggests he move toward the left side of the lobby while they wait for the doors to open.

“I’d rather try to get a seat in the center,” he says.

“But we’ll get seats closer to the front on the side, don’t you think? It’s less crowded.”

“No, I think I can get to the front of the crowd here,” he says, and starts trying to do just that.

“ _Will_ ,” she snaps, her claws pricking through his shirt, “go _left_. Just _do it_.”

So he’s hardly even surprised when he comes face to face with Charles Wallace.

xi.

Lavardin and Kirjava are looking extremely pleased with themselves, but Will is frowning.

“I’m sorry,” Charles Wallace says immediately. “I had no idea - Lavardin didn’t tell me - I’ll go to the other side.”

Will winces, the shoulder Kirjava is perched on twitching away from her as if he’s been stung. “No,” he says, teeth gritted, and Kirjava purrs. “It’s alright. Would you like to sit together?”

“If you really don’t mind,” Charles Wallace says doubtfully while Lavardin hisses excitedly against his ear.

“I don’t mind,” Will says, and sounds less pained about it this time. 

“Then yes,” Charles Wallace says, and smiles like he’s been wanting to since the moment he saw Will. “I’d like that.”

It’s awkward.

Will is silent while they wait for the play to start, only responding to direct questions with the briefest possible answers. During the first act, Charles Wallace unthinkingly leans into him as he laughs; Will goes stiff, and Charles Wallace spends the rest of the act painfully conscious of keeping his elbow and knee out of Will’s space. Will bolts the second the lights go up for intermission, and Charles Wallace gives Lavardin a horrified glare.

“It was Kirjava’s idea,” Lavardin says.

“He _hates_ me.” Charles Wallace sinks down in his chair and buries his nose in his program, not daring to look up until the lights dim again.

Will seems more relaxed during the second act, though, and Charles Wallace keeps getting distracted from the stage by the way his whole face opens up when he laughs.

Nevertheless, Charles Wallace is planning to say a polite goodbye and go as quickly as possible once the show is over in order to spare Will any further awkwardness and discomfort. So he’s surprised when, as soon as the applause has died down, Will turns to him and says, “Want to go for a drink?”

"Um,” Charles Wallace says, “yes?”

And that’s how Charles Wallace finds himself coughing on his first mouthful of beer that he doesn’t even like very much when Will squares his jaw, stares across the table, and says, “Tell me about Camazotz.”

xii.

Will can’t help feeling a little guilty as Charles Wallace coughs and splutters, but he waits calmly until the coughing has subsided and Charles Wallace is only staring at him across the table with ill-concealed horror.

“So that’s how _that_ feels,” Will says, and takes a long pull from his glass.

Charles Wallace blinks and flushes. “That’s not fair, I didn’t know that kind of detail.”

"Technicality,” Will says.

Charles Wallace clears his throat and twists his glass back and forth between his hands. “Okay. I didn’t realize. I’m sorry.”

“Just stop with the ‘tell me all of your deepest secrets’ thing, and we’re square.”

“I’ll stop,” Charles Wallace says, looking up from his glass hopefully. “We’re square?”

Will has to suppress a smile. “I suppose we are, then.”

Charles Wallace grins at him. “But how did you know about-“

“My fault,” Lavardin says in a tiny voice. “I told Kirjava, I didn’t know she would-”

“Of course I did,” Kirjava says. “It was important.”

“All I know,” Will breaks in, “is that it was where you separated from Lavardin, which means it must be an incredibly painful memory. I thought I was relatively safe assuming that you wouldn’t want to talk about it with somebody who’s basically a stranger.”

Charles Wallace looks away. “I don’t.”

“So we won’t,” Will says, and Charles Wallace offers him a very small smile.

“I _am_ sorry,” he says, and he sounds it this time, and Will finds that it really is okay.

"What did you think of the play?” he asks, and Charles Wallace lights up.

“I’ve seen better Thomasinas, but their Hannah was brilliant, wasn’t she?”

Will shrugs. “I always find myself wishing that Stoppard had given us proper bisexual Byron scandals. Forget Mrs. Chater, why not an affair with Ezra?”

Charles Wallace laughs, bright and shocked and happy, and Will grins into his beer as Kirjava licks his hand once in approval.

“Thank goodness Ada Lovelace didn’t actually die at sixteen, though. Then where would we be?”

“Troglodytes,” Will says seriously.

“Septimus is all of us,” Charles Wallace says, nodding, and Will snorts, and Charles Wallace beams at him, and Will rubs Kirjava’s ear in her very favorite spot.

She’ll know that it means thank you.

xiii.

Three days later, Will is once again waiting for Charles Wallace when he leaves the Peierls Centre. Two days after that, Charles Wallace waits for Will at the boathouse. Will talks around things: he asks how Charles Wallace likes Oxford, but changes the subject when Charles Wallace mentions his research; he asks about Charles Wallace’s family, but will only say that his mother lives nearby; he avoids religion entirely. They can talk about music, but not Charles Wallace’s love for Magdalen College’s Evensong services; Byron and Whitman but not Blake or Donne; the placebo effect but not quantum field theory.

Charles Wallace feels like he’s picking his way through a conversational minefield, but he isn’t so sure he would mind an explosion if it would open Will up to him a little more. The only thing that keeps him avoiding the topics that make Will frown and go quiet is the fear that pushing even a little will push Will away.

Saturday afternoon, Will texts him: _Want to go to a party tonight?_

Charles Wallace doesn’t particularly care for parties, but he still responds with, _Maybe. Why?_

_I have to make an appearance at a birthday party,_ Will sends back. _Don’t really want to, but course politics demand my presence._

_And you want me to come with you?_ Charles Wallace asks after he fails to think of any other intended meaning behind the original question.

_If I have to go to a party, I’d rather be able to talk to somebody interesting._

_Okay, sure,_ Charles Wallace types, and ignores Lavardin’s dreamy sigh.

As he follows Will into a house that evening, he’s forced to revise ‘doesn’t particularly care for parties’ to 'really hates parties’. He’d gone to a few his first year of college, but they’d invariably been loud and drunken and full of people dancing and trying to hook up and other things Charles Wallace had no interest in, and that’s without even going into the time his roommate dragged him out to 'get him laid’ after Charles Wallace told him that he wasn’t particularly interested in sex. But, a few years on, he’d thought that maybe he would feel differently, or the party would be different, or that he’d manage to enjoy a normal student experience for once.

The drinks here are a little better, the music a little softer, and the crowd a little older, but that doesn’t make it any less overwhelming and alien.

Somebody shouts, “Parry!” and Charles Wallace can feel eyes turning their way, skipping from Will to him and back again, and he pastes a polite smile into place and repeats “Hi, Charles Wallace, nice to meet you,” as Will introduces him around.

It’s too noisy, is the problem, and not just in that he has to lean forward to hear somebody who’s already talking too loud. He loses track of all sorts of things that usually sit comfortably in the back of his head. He has no idea how Mother or Meg are feeling right now. He doesn’t know where Will is. He can’t tell how he feels about the woman he’s talking to.

“So,” she’s saying to him, and he gets a flash of a squirrel through her hair, “you’re here with Will?”

“Yes,” Charles Wallace says, and her smile is much bigger than that answer really called for.

“That’s lovely,” she says. “And it’s so nice that he brought you, he’s always been terribly private about his personal life. I don’t think any of us have ever seen him with anybody.”

“Oh?” Charles Wallace is missing something, he knows he’s missing something, if only the music were quieter-

“How long have you two been together?” she asks.

“We’re - sorry?” Lavardin pokes their head up out of Charles Wallace’s shirt.

“Nobody here cares,” she says, smiling encouragingly. “We’re happy for Will, honestly.”

“We’re not together,” Charles Wallace says, and her face falls. “Just friends. Sorry.”

“No, _I’m_ sorry,” she says, recovering admirably. “God, how embarrassing.”

“It’s fine,” Charles Wallace says, and she asks what he’s studying and he focuses on holding a normal conversation and not on the way Lavardin’s tail is fluttering nervously against his skin.

Will appears at his elbow a few minutes later with two beers dangling from one hand. “Sorry,” he says. “I was press-ganged into doing a birthday shot. Hi, Emma. Drink, Charles Wallace?”

Emma watches Will hand Charles Wallace a beer with a little too much interest and Charles Wallace attempts to smile.

Will is too observant. “All right?” he says, even as he’s removing the beer from Charles Wallace’s hand, taking his elbow, and steering him straight out of the front door.

“I don’t like parties,” Charles Wallace says, and Will frowns and sits him down on the brick wall around the front garden.

“You should’ve said,” he says. “You didn’t have to come.”

“I forgot. I haven’t been to one in a long time.”

“We can go,” Will says, and sits down next to him. “We don’t have to stay, I don’t much like parties either, honestly.”

Charles Wallace snorts. “Yeah, then they would definitely think we were together.”

“We’re not together,” Will says, sharp and loud and Charles Wallace looks at him with wide eyes.

“I know, that’s what I told her.”

“Good,” Will says, and glares down the road.

“Why don’t I just go,” Charles Wallace says. “You go to the party, I’ll remember that I hate parties next time, and I’ll see you later.”

“Yeah,” Will says. “Fine. Later.”

“Apologize to your friends for me,” Charles Wallace says, and Will doesn’t respond, so Charles Wallace goes.

He feels better once he’s a couple blocks away, the crisp air clearing the party from his head. Meg and Mother are fine, and Lavardin is draped cool around his neck, and he can hear himself think. But something hurts, just a little, just enough that Lavardin is pressing their face against his collarbone and hissing soothing nonsense into the night.

xiv.

Kirjava chirrups an inquiry when Will gets home barely half an hour after Charles Wallace had left the party.

“Charles Wallace doesn’t like parties,” he tells her. “He left early. I made the rounds, didn’t much feel like staying longer.”

He sits on the windowseat and she moves into his lap. Her silence is a waiting sort of silence.

“Emma thought we were together,” Will finally tells her. “I got upset.”

Kirjava rubs her head against his hand. “With Emma?”

“With Charles Wallace,” Will admits.

“Does he know why?”

Will sighs, and Kirjava kneads her front paws into his thigh. “This is why I don’t have friends,” he mutters.

“Oh?” Kirjava is calm. “Why’s that?”

“How could any of them possibly understand?”

“Maybe some of them could, if you’d give them a chance.”

“Yes, but they wouldn’t be-”

“Wouldn’t be Lyra,” Kirjava finishes for him. “Are we really going to spend our whole life waiting for Lyra?”

“Maybe,” Will says, crossing his arms sullenly.

“I miss her, too,” Kirjava says. “Her and Pan. We’ll never stop missing them. But we could know other people. We could make friends.”

“Just friends, though.”

“Just friends,” Kirjava agrees, and gives his hand a rough lick.

They sit together for a long time while he strokes her absently and she purrs.

“I should apologize to Charles Wallace,” Will finally says.

“Tomorrow,” Kirjava says firmly. “It’ll keep.”

xv.

Charles Wallace is just out of the shower and waiting for his coffee to brew when there’s a knock on his door the next morning.

It’s Will with Kirjava cradled against his chest, the oddness of his posture to anyone who can’t see her apparently none of his concern.

Lavardin hisses at them.

“Hi,” Charles Wallace says, leaning against the doorjamb.

“Hi,” Will says. “Can I come in?”

Charles Wallace may still feel drawn to Will, but he’s also learned a lot of hard lessons about not letting people push him around, even people he likes. It was the only way to survive high school.

That and his feelings are hurt.

So, instead of stepping aside to let Will in, he asks, “Why?”

Will sighs. “I really don’t want to do this in the hallway.”

Charles Wallace shrugs.

Will glowers and shifts from one foot to the other. “I’m sorry I was so rude last night. Again. It wasn’t about you - hasn’t ever been about you - and I’d like to explain.”

Charles Wallace considers for a moment, then finally steps aside and holds the door open. “Come in, then. Coffee?”

It isn’t until Charles Wallace has finished half of his mug that he finally goes to join Will in his sitting area. Will has taken the armchair, Kirjava in his lap, and he looks nervous, his lips thin as he picks at loose threads on the armrests.

“Okay,” Charles Wallace says, settling on the sofa. “Explain.”

Will knots a hand in Kirjava’s fur, and Charles Wallace remembers Will at the boathouse, one hand by his ear. He opens his mouth, closes it, and glances at the door like he might decide to leave instead, but finally looks back at Charles Wallace.

“When I was twelve,” he says, “I found another world. And then a lot of other worlds, and - it’s a very, very long story. But I can’t go back to any of them, ever. And I- there were people there-”

Charles Wallace waits for him to continue, but he scowls across the room silently, until Charles Wallace finally begins to add things up. “You loved somebody there,” he offers. “In one of the other worlds, didn’t you?”

“Love,” Will says, his eyes snapping over, and the force of the emotions Charles Wallace had felt at the Botanic Garden is making more sense every second.

“Love,” Charles Wallace agrees. “So, last night, you were upset because Emma assumed that you and I were together-”

“Because we're _not_ ,” Will breaks in.

“I know that,” Charles Wallace says, slowly and clearly. “And I’m sorry if I gave the impression I was interested-”

“I’m not offended if you are,” Will hurries over him. “It’s not about you being male, I’ve actually been attracted to men-”

“ _Will_ ,” Charles Wallace says, and Will finally stops talking. “I’m not.”

Will frowns for a second, squinting, then says, “Not what?”

“Any of it,” Charles Wallace says. “Interested in you, or attracted to men, or anybody, for that matter.”

Will goes back to picking awkwardly at the armchair. “Sorry, anybody?”

“I’m asexual,” Charles Wallace says. “I mean, I could actually be interested in dating you, theoretically, I’m panromantic, but I’ve never been sexually attracted to anyone, and I promise I don’t have a crush on you, either.”

“Panromantic?” Will echoes, and now he just looks pathetically lost.

“They really should teach doctors these things,” Charles Wallace sighs. “You have the Internet, educate yourself, the point is I’m not hurt because I’m pining for you. This isn’t about me. Go on.”

“It _is_ about you,” Will says after a second, “insofar as befriending you will apparently continue to force me to think about things I generally try not to think about, much less talk about.”

“So you might occasionally get snappy and distant, but it’s not because you’re having a gay panic crisis?”

“I'm _so_ sorry,” Will says. “I didn’t realize I was giving that impression. It was hard enough for me to introduce a friend, without them assuming you were my boyfriend, and I was surprised how much it - I don’t know that there will ever be anybody else for me, after her. But nobody knows that, or hardly anybody, anyway, and it’s difficult.”

Charles Wallace has never tried particularly hard to hide who he is, but he’s also always had his family to talk to about tesseracts and Camazotz and Progo and every other odd thing that’s ever happened. He doesn’t know what he would be like if he’d had to keep it all inside, if nobody had understood, but he thinks he might be like Will - terrified and wrapped up so tight that the slightest crack into his inner world sends him running.

“What’s her name?” he asks, gently, and he’s prepared for Will to run, but instead, he smiles a little.

“Lyra,” Will says, and Kirjava makes a sound that is equal parts joy and longing.

“Do you want to talk about her?”

Will takes a deep breath. “Not today, I don’t think.”

“Okay,” Charles Wallace says easily, as neutral as when Will had turned down coffee. He has a million questions - what other worlds? What happened there? Is that where Will learned about daemons? Lost his fingers? How did he get to the other worlds, and why can’t he go back? - but he knows that today isn’t the day for them. “Anything else?”

“I think I need to go,” Will says, “if that’s all right.”

He’s gone shortly after that, with plans made for Tuesday afternoon and Lavardin raising his head to say goodbye rather than hiss them out of the flat.

That afternoon, Charles Wallace gets a text: _You said asexual and panromantic?_

A little warily, Charles Wallace writes back, _Yes. Why?_

_Educating myself. A friend told me to,_ Will replies.

Charles Wallace doesn’t usually care for emoticons, but he sends a smiley face anyway.

xvi.

Will opens up in fits and starts, circles around the edges of his stories, gives away pieces that don’t add up to any clear narrative.

He tells Charles Wallace about the witches, the panserbjørne, the Gallivespians, and the Mulefa, but only in the abstract. He talks about the other Oxford and about Cittàgazze, but not about the things he did there. He describes the doors between worlds, but not how they are made.

From Charles Wallace, in return, Will learns about the Centaur-like beings of Uriel, the tentacled inhabitants of Ixchel, the giants of the Veganuel galaxy, the tiny mitochondrial worlds of farandolae. Charles Wallace gives only a little more personal information than Will does; he gets the idea that Charles Wallace only knows about Ixchel second-hand, and Charles Wallace once says ‘Blajeny’ before stopping himself and changing the subject, but by and large, the stories are as narratively disconnected as Will’s.

Over the next few weeks, Will grows curious enough that he’s sure Charles Wallace must be burning with his own. He almost asks once or twice, but he doesn’t dare disturb the tenuous balance they’ve reached. If he asks for more, he knows that he would be implicitly giving Charles Wallace permission to do the same, and his reasons for avoiding that are not just due to his personal feelings.

He has dinner with Mary in late October. It isn’t until they’re sipping their coffee at the end of the meal before he even decides to mention Charles Wallace, much less how.

“I’ve made a friend,” he finally says.

“Oh, Will, that’s wonderful,” Mary says.

“He’s a PhD student,” Will tells her. “Theoretical physics. Mostly particle theory.”

Mary focuses in on him, her and her daemon’s heads cocking to the side in tandem. “Oh?”

“We met because he could tell that there was something special about the Botanical Garden, and he kept going back until he met me. He’s been to other worlds. Planets, I mean, not parallel ones.”

“And you’re trying to decide how much to tell him,” Mary says, eyes narrowing in thought.

“I introduced him to his daemon,” Will says, and Mary’s eyebrows go up slightly before she nods.

“What do you _want_ to tell him?”

“More than I have,” Will admits, “but nothing that’s going to lead to the sorts of problems here that there were in Lyra’s world. Intercision, or spectres, or bridges between worlds, none of that.”

“Well, I’m afraid there’s no way we can entirely ensure that those things won’t happen here,” Mary says. “Do you think he’d pursue them?”

“I don’t think Charles Wallace would-”

“Charles Wallace,” Mary cuts in. “That’s ringing a bell, though I can’t quite think of why. Do you know his surname?”

“Murry, I think.”

Mary’s eyes widen. “Of _course_. Son of Alex Murry?”

“I don’t know,” Will says. “I think he’s said his father is a physicist.”

“Well, if it’s the same Charles Wallace Murry, he and his father co-authored a quite brilliant paper about the fifth dimension when he was only, oh, nineteen, I think. And his father is quite well-known in some circles. I had no idea he’d come to Oxford.”

“Well-known in which circles?”

Mary hums thoughtfully. “The best possible ones, when it comes to your initial question. His work has all been unassailable, but he’s proven himself able to think about things in quite unexpected ways and willing to explore things that others have dismissed as nonsense. He’s also been quite outspoken about the ethical responsibilities of the scientific community.”

“You know him, then?”

Mary laughs. “I’m afraid I haven’t had that pleasure. I’m generally considered a disgrace to the scientific community, you know. I’ve not been invited to many conferences in the last few years. I do keep up with the journals, though, as much as I can.”

“You’re not a disgrace,” Will says, “they’re just idiots.”

“Thank you, Will,” Mary says, lips quirking up. “I’ll tell them you said so.”

“You think I should tell Charles Wallace, then,” he says.

“People are getting closer all the time to understanding dust,” Mary says. “Nobody is as close now as Oliver and I once were, but they’re trying, and they’re getting there, and many of them won’t have any compunctions about using the knowledge judiciously, Oliver chief among them. I would say that if there is anything we can do to help ensure that those who understand it first are also those who will be able to help guide the application of the knowledge toward better channels than those used in other worlds, we shouldn’t hesitate.”

Will nods slowly. “Thank you, Mary.”

“Of course,” she says. “I don’t ever want to push, Will, but I’m always happy to help however I can. You do know that, don’t you?”

“Yes,” he says, and loves her a little more.

xvii.

There’s a new energy about Will, something intense and determined and excited. Charles Wallace is so used to feeling Will’s apprehension, the jolt of anxiety whenever they start discussing their pasts - even when Will is the one to bring them up - that he has to resist the urge to dip into Will’s mind to try to work out what’s brought on the sudden change.

“So,” Will says once they’ve settled at his table with mugs of tea, “theoretical physics.”

“That’s the idea, yes,” Charles Wallace says.

“What do you do when you know something is true but you can’t prove it?”

Charles Wallace frowns. “How do you mean?”

“Like traveling in the fifth dimension,” Will says, and he really looks far too pleased with himself to go unchallenged.

“Oh, I can prove that,” Charles Wallace says, offering Will his hand and grinning when Will’s eyes go wide. “I can prove it right now, if you want.”

“What, really? Don’t you need, I don’t know, preparation?”

“Tessering isn’t a machine. It’s poetry.” Charles Wallace wiggles his fingers invitingly.

“Tessering?”

“The fifth-dimensional fold is called a tesseract. Traveling by it, tessering,” Charles Wallace explains. “Where would you like to go? Uriel? London? Anywhere inbetween? I usually hit where I’m aiming. No death or maiming yet.”

“Yet? No, thank you,” Will says, though clearly reluctantly.

“Another time,” Charles Wallace says. “What, were you Google-stalking me?”

“No,” Will says, his smirk beginning to come back. “Why, should I?”

“Only if you want to be really bored.”

“I mentioned you to a friend of mine. She recognized your name and mentioned your article.”

“Interesting friend you have,” Charles Wallace says, raising an eyebrow. “I think I’d like to meet her. But to answer your question, I don’t think tessering is a particularly good example. More people know about it than you think, and most of the groundwork has been laid, even if it hasn’t been published. The real issue is avoiding the violation of non-disclosure agreements, not proving the concept. Which we didn’t even explicitly mention in that article, come to think of it.”

Will shrugs. “You’ve been to other planets. It wasn’t that hard to work out.”

Charles Wallace thinks Will is being a little too modest, but he lets it go for now. “In theory, you’d have to work backwards from whatever you know to be true, figure out what other things would have to be true in order for that thing to be true and so on. Eventually you’d get to things you do know. Then you’d start to work forward from there, I guess. Why do you ask?”

Will grins and leans forward, folding his arms on the table and looking Charles Wallace in the eye. “I know what dark matter is.”

Charles Wallace slops hot tea on his hand.

And then Will starts to explain, and the entire universe reforms around Charles Wallace.

It’s beautiful.


End file.
